WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) today welcomed President Trump’s America First Investment Policy memorandum, which demands that Executive Branch agencies restrict the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from exploiting for hostile purposes the U.S. capital markets, private equity funds, and scores of millions of American retail investors. CPA has long called for policies which curtail China’s ability to raise trillions of dollars from U.S. investors by selling and trading their securities in our capital markets—especially through passive investment products like Exchange Traded Funds and Mutual Funds—as well as from private equity flows.
This avalanche of U.S. investor capital allows China to fund its state-sponsored genocide, military aggression, surveillance state apparatus, and other malign activities through the trillions of dollars that Americans have invested in roughly 5,000 Chinese companies traded on our exchanges over the past 25 years.
Roger Robinson Jr., a CPA senior advisor and former National Security Council Senior Director of International Economic Affairs for President Ronald Reagan, detailed these threats in a Fox Nation documentary series titled, “Underwriting the Enemy,” (Password: Nation) hosted by Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo. CPA’s work, which was covered in this program, helped catalyze the issuing of the President’s investment policy memorandum.
“For years, CPA has warned that the Chinese Communist Party is exploiting U.S. capital to modernize its military, expand its authoritarian influence, fund its Orwellian surveillance state, and prop up its forced labor regime—all while undermining America’s industrial strength and national security,” said Zach Mottl, Chairman of CPA. “President Trump’s executive order sends a clear message: The days of allowing China to weaponize US investment and financial markets against us are over.”
Last year, CPA released a list of legislation it endorses to restrict U.S. capital flows to China. CPA also supports bills introduced by Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) to curb Wall Street’s investments in China, as well as a bipartisan legislative package introduced by Congresswoman Victoria Spartz (R-IN-05) and Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA-32).
Roger Robinson, who also formerly served as Chairman of the Congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, added, “Although not an Executive Order, this Presidential Memorandum—instructing Executive Branch agencies to implement his clearly stated intentions and demands—represents a history-making breakthrough in finally requiring a near-term end to the multi-trillion-dollar U.S. investor funding of the CCP and PLA over the past 25 years. Hopefully, the Congress will do its part in making illegal a number of Wall Street’s reckless and indefensible investment practices benefitting Chinese state-controlled corporate bad actors to our detriment.”
Last year, CPA released a new “case study” report to Congress that highlights the growing influence of the CCP over U.S. financial firms. The report titled “Inside the Wire: Wall Street’s Joint Ventures with the Chinese Communist Party” reveals how U.S. financial giants — including BlackRock and Goldman Sachs — have formed joint ventures (JVs) with state banks controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), giving Beijing unprecedented influence over major U.S. financial firms and Wall Street executives. These partnerships provide the CCP with dangerous leverage that poses a serious risk to U.S. economic and national security.
This report follows CPA’s two prior reports on Vanguard and FTSE Russell, as well as BlackRock and MSCI, that detail how Wall Street asset managers and index providers funnel U.S. investor capital into companies linked to CCP firms that have been sanctioned by the U.S. government for human rights abuses and helping advance the lethality of the PLA.
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